Pain But No Gain

Today over 250,000 protesters descended on London. Their aim was to vent their anger at the Government's programme of dramatic spending cuts. Workers from all the main trade unions, students, and supporters came together to march against the coalition's plan to eliminate the entire structural deficit in just four years.

For some the grievances expressed today will be seen as the manifestation of an unreasonable sense of entitlement that has developed in the last few years. Public sector workers, they would say, must be turfed out as part of a fundamental economic re-structuring after years of dependence on the state. Many pro-cuts figures also reach for the statistics for how much the government spends on servicing debt interest in order to justify the government's cuts agenda.

Observing the protest at close quarters, it was clear to me that some of the marchers were in absolute denial about the need to reduce the fiscal deficit. Some people had banners calling for there to be no cuts at all. Others tried to explain their position by highlighting the amount spent on trident and the sums lost through tax avoidance. I would say, however, that the majority of people in attendance accepted the need for spending reductions. Their criticism would be that the coalition are going about it too far and too fast.

This is a position that has been advocated by the last two Nobel prize winners for economics. Leading economists on both sides of the Atlantic have argued that cutting back state support while the recovery remains fragile risks plunging us back into recession. The basic premise is that making more people unemployed through public sector redundancies will dampen demand in the economy. This will make it more difficult for firms to grow and it will harm business confidence. Those people who lose their job in the public sector are unlikely to be absorbed by the private sector given the perilous state of the economy.

It is in this context that the Chancellor produced his 'budget for growth' on Wednesday. The budget statement began with Mr Osborne downgrading his growth forecasts, blaming it largely on last year's snow and global instability. Afterwards, he pledged to cut corporation tax and tax on fuel (although this was clearly a political red herring as he increased VAT on fuel only a matter of months ago).

Until the recovery is in full-swing, these measures will be like moving deckchairs on the Titanic as long as they are accompanied by the government's cuts programme. I have never heard a convincing argument as to why the entire deficit has to be eliminated in four years. Why not 5? Or 6? Or 10? The markets will back a plan they view to be credible. This does not mean the deficit reduction plan has to be the most aggressive one available.

Surely the best plan is one that commits to deficit reduction but recognises the need for basic economic stability. The goal must be to put the economy back into a position where it can support people who lose their jobs in the public sector. Putting more people on the dole when the recovery is fragile just appears reckless to me. It seems like ideological nonsense spouted by a government that is obsessed with re-balancing the economy away from reliance on the state, whatever the consequences.

I hope that Mr Osborne listens to the concerns of ordinary people (and it was, by and large, ordinary people: families and all generations) put forward today about the dangers of his policy. Failing that, I hope he listens to the Nobel laureates and leading economists who have warned about the need for growth before there can be cuts. If he continues on his current course he may find that his obsession with deficit reduction leads to years of financial stagnation.

When Would You Pull The Trigger?

Thanks to the Inner Temple (easily the best of the four Inns of Court, incidentally, for any aspiring barristers) today I was able to gain a rare insight into how the police train with and use firearms. I visited the Metropolitan Police Specialist Training Centre down in Kent where I was shown the training officers go through and given the chance to step into their shoes by participating in simulated exercises.

Like many people, before the trip I regarded the police as somewhat trigger happy when given the chance to run around with guns. Having read about cases like the de Menezes debacle, and more recently the murky shooting of barrister Mark Saunders, it's fair to say I didn't have a great deal of faith in the police's ability to exercise restraint.

My pre-conceptions were turned on their head by some of the things I learned. Firstly, the police instructors demonstrated the rigorous testing firearms officers have to undertake in order to carry a gun and the equally demanding re-accreditation programme they must pass each year in order to maintain their license. The officers are all required to hit moving targets from large distances with all kinds of weapon, including pistols, and to do so with 80% accuracy. Some of the more specialist guys are required to hit targets in combat situations, being fired at and challenged by difficult circumstances. To think that cops in the US and most other countries carry guns as of right is unbelievable in comparison to the high standards of assessment UK officers are expected to meet. It certainly made me feel a new found sense of confidence in the Met's ability to handle firearms incidents.

Secondly, all the officers are put through a series of simulated firearms scenarios. These will involve situations like high-school shootings and domestic violence. The officers are examined on when they choose to fire and why. You might think this is relatively simple; surely they shoot the bad guys, and only when they are being shot at first? Well having taken part myself, I can assure you it's not so easy. I found that I was the most trigger-happy of the group, prepared to fire whenever I saw a person with a weapon.

Cases like the Stockwell shooting and the Saunders tragedy will be scrutinised by the media and the courts for years after the event. Experts will assess whether the officers made the right decision. Sometimes, inevitably, they will get it wrong. But when you have literally split-seconds to make hugely complicated judgment calls, you do not have the benefit of careful, considered analysis. You have to do what you think is right there and then, often on the basis of incomplete information. After taking part in some fake exercises with no real sense of pressure, I certainly will think twice before criticising the police for making mistakes in these situations.

Take the de Menezes case. Clearly there were serious flaws in the intelligence, which the Met has rightly been chastised for. Can anyone really blame the officers that fired though? They saw a man running into a Tube station days after the worst terrorist attack in recent British history. They had reason to believe that he was a suicide bomber, intent on blowing up the tube. Should they have (a) waited and done nothing; (b) shot him or engaged him in a non-fatal way; or (c) shot him in the head?

Obviously, with the benefit of hindsight, option (a) was the right choice. That is easy for us now, six years after the event following a number of investigations. It wasn't so obvious to the officers at the time. They genuinely believed they had to disable a man in order to prevent him killing scores of men, women, and children. Those officers did not have the time to enter into such considered analysis.

If anyone disputes my point of view and believes that firearms officers should always know when to hold their fire, I challenge them to go down to Kent and take part in the simulation. They may just find that they are surprised by how eager they are to pull the trigger.

Is It Always Wrong to Ask?

The star of The Apprentice and Labour Party Peer, Lord Sugar, this week argued that employers should be allowed to ask prospective employees whether or not they plan to have children. This produced a storm of protest from feminists and successful women everywhere, who immediately branded Lord Sugar's view as unfair and unreasonable. Despite the law prohibiting employers questioning any potential employee about their childcare commitments, it is widely assumed that the candidates who would be asked this question most often would be female.

Lord Sugar justified his statement by pointing to the problems businesses (particularly small businesses) encounter when they hire women who then take maternity leave shortly after starting work. Running a small business would undoubtedly become more difficult when a significant part of the workforce chooses to leave with no guarantee of them coming back in the near future. The problems are surely more pressing given the dire economic climate in which small firms are required to operate.

Despite this, women are understandably worried about being asked such an intrusive and personal question. Many people would regard childcare to be a private matter and none of the employer's business. In addition, there is a fear that a person could be discriminated against merely for wishing to fulfil a human desire to raise children.

These objections are misguided, however. If a person is trying to run a business with four members of staff, they surely have a legitimate interest in wishing to know the time commitments of their employees. It's exactly the same as an employer asking whether they wish to take time out for any other reason, e.g. further study or holidays. The fact is that many businesses would simply fold if a key member of staff was absent for an extended period of time. Owners cannot be expected to gamble with recruitment in these situations.

Moreover, women surely encounter more discrimination under the present system. As Lord Sugar said, the fact that employers are not allowed to ask means that many simply fail to recruit as many women as they would otherwise do. If a woman says, 'I have absolutely no interest in having children in the immediate future', she would be in a more advantageous position than under the status quo, where the employer is none the wiser about her future plans. If she says 'Yes I wish to have children in the immediate future' then it's only fair for the employer to know this. There may be absolutely no issue, for example where it has been agreed that the woman's partner will take care of the children.

So rather than undermining female participation in the workplace, allowing employers to question prospective employees about their childcare commitments may actually enhance gender equality in this country. That would be a good thing for society in general but also for British business. Perhaps we should get away from this (forgive the pun) childish law that prevents employers talking to prospective employees about their ability to work for them.